Burning Down

by Venero Armanno

  ‘Then tell me.’

  ‘Your father already knows what I’m going to tell you.’ Javier looked at him with greater curiosity. ‘You would have discussed this, no?’

  ‘Start from scratch. What’s the business worth?’

  ‘It’s worth … its own current value.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘Diego’s Bistro is more than a going concern, true. My own father looks after the accounts and I went through them with him last night, just to be sure. There have been tough times, ups and downs, but overall the books look fair. Rare for this area. I’m sure you’re not blind to just how much your neighbours are struggling. Or how many have already gone under. We’ve got vacant leases up and down Fortitude Valley.’

  ‘I know that.’

  ‘But it’s significant for you and your family. Because you want to know if you should sell. The answer’s definitely not. It’s the wrong moment, the wrong time. And that’s because the bistro’s value isn’t in the restaurant but the land it’s on.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The council’s got redevelopment proposals for the entire Valley. Everyone knows that. What’s here today won’t be here tomorrow, if the plans get approved. So, who’d buy your restaurant? When the council lifts its development and building restrictions, suddenly every place around here becomes a lot more valuable. Think a gold mine. But if the council decides to maintain the character of the area and not allow modernisation, guess what?’

  ‘Prices stay low?’

  ‘Actually they’ll be even more depressed.’

  ‘Because it stays the same old shithole and more businesses close down.’

  ‘Exactly. I told you your dad’s business is in fair shape. Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean much. The profits are small, but at least there are profits. Now. Someone with half the sense of an amoeba will look at this business for five seconds before they realise it’s the Domingo name that’s the drawcard. Everyone loves your parents and their food. Great. Take that out and what have you got? Another wog restaurant trying to turn a profit in an utterly depressed market. Value: zero. It’s a sure way for a buyer to lose his money.’

  ‘On the upside?’

  ‘Two or three years all these lovely council plans come into effect and any developer worth their salt will want everything around here. They’ll pay through the nose. The real entrepreneurs with money behind them, they’re already getting in. But,’ Javier held up an index finger, making his point, ‘they’re buying cheap from people desperate to sell. You don’t want to be one of those.’

  Bobby experienced one moment of real clarity.

  ‘Terence Darcy.’

  Javier made something between a laugh and a grimace. ‘He’s the barometer, all right. Junior’s been buying up everything he can. From the ones already got their backs to the wall. And I hear he’s strong-arming the rest.’

  ‘But still,’ Bobby persisted, ‘how much for a sale today?’

  ‘Nothing. Twenty grand if the planets align.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That’s it.’

  ‘Fuck … How far away’s the council’s decision?’

  ‘Feasibility studies, planning, lobbying—two years minimum, seven years max.’

  Bobby experienced a fresh wave of nausea.

  ‘So your job, Roberto: keep your old man’s eye on the ball. Don’t let him lose his grip. If he put you up to this today, then it’s time you start thinking for him.’ Javier put his hand on Bobby’s shoulder and shook him roughly. ‘Understand?’

  They were at the front door. Outside, a quiet morning.

  ‘Look after that baby of yours.’

  ‘You look after your old man.’

  Bobby shut the door and leaned against it, not wanting to move.

  …

  Charlie Smoke finally had the entire fence down, which made him happy, and he continued digging out the old foundations by hand so that he could hire a backhoe and excavate them to the depth they really needed to be. It was another sweltering day, him working crabbed with his bad left arm, and he stole glances toward the house and kitchen windows, where he thought Holly might be standing. Although she was probably inside somewhere thinking about things far more important than one sweating labourer.

  The hardest aspect of what he was doing involved swinging the pick to break up the old concrete. His left arm didn’t have a free range of motion. His left shoulder screamed. Every strike into the ground sent a reverberation of pain through him. Shovelling out the broken bits and chunks of old concrete was bad too, but at least it was easier to protect himself. Yet the job needed doing and he wasn’t about to quit. The problem would clear itself up soon enough. He gritted his teeth and kept on.

  Here, now, was another swing. More old concrete between his feet cracked. He swung again until it all broke, his shirt stained with sweat, skin raw and burning. Even he could see how much these days were darkening his colour. Charlie used his boot to kick at the short half-metre or so of broken bits of foundations; he had about fifty metres still to go. He hadn’t yet cracked these particular chunks all the way through so that he could shovel them out.

  Already a little dizzy from that heat and grating discomfort, Charlie swung again, hard as he could. He heard and felt the harsh crunch of the metal pick-head against rock. Too hard; the pick bounced out of his grip and something like a powerful electric shock went all the way through him. He clutched his left shoulder and fell to one knee, curling in on himself.

  Before he even understood what was happening, Holly was there, helping him into the shade. He felt her take off his straw hat; through stars he saw her wipe his brow and face. He wanted to retch, and stopped himself with deep breaths. She was saying something that he couldn’t quite understand. Then, as usual, the worst passed, until only a sort of aftershock remained, a dazed compost of heat and sweat and residual pain that lingered then also started to dissipate.

  Holly had taken him into the shade of the yard’s biggest tree, a flowering poinciana. She’d used a small towel to wipe his face. He took it from her and held it to his forehead. The towel wasn’t his; must have been from her kitchen. He rested, breathing low and letting the stars in his eyes turn to fading pinpricks. Her soft, concerned voice was asking him if he was all right. He nodded, and as he did he saw that she went away, was moving like some kind of glittery daytime ghost down to his utility truck. She returned the same way, now carrying his blue cooler. Focusing, he watched her pour him his special water. It was fresh, ice barely melted.

  He drank and considered his tools, all left aside. That gaping emptiness where the fence had been. He didn’t feel anything like the affront or shame he’d felt when she’d first asked him about his shoulder, even though the weakness she saw today was irrefutable. He didn’t know why that was.

  ‘Has it settled down?’

  ‘The problem I don’t have?’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘The thing never lasts long … though it was never this bad.’ He took a long breath, needing to settle himself, and again sipped from his cup. ‘Twenty to thirty seconds, then believe me, it’s like it never happened.’

  ‘And this time?’

  ‘Sort of the same. I hit something, must have been a bad angle.’

  ‘It’s as if you passed out.’

  ‘Without falling over.’ He tried to smile at her. The concern in her face was real. ‘Not unheard of in a particularly bad match.’

  ‘If you think you can, I want you to do something for me, Charlie.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Are you okay to stand up?’

  He didn’t need her help, yet he could see how watchful she remained.

  ‘All right.’ Holly took his left arm by the wrist and placed a hand on his left shoulder. He braced himself. ‘No, no. Trust me, okay? The thing is you have to rela
x.’

  ‘I’m dirty and sweaty …’

  ‘Aren’t we all? Come on.’

  ‘So you know what you’re doing?’

  ‘It might have been a long time ago but I learned a lot about something called bursitis. It’s first-year stuff, it’s so common. Now, I’m going to be very gentle. Your job is to tell me the very moment it starts to hurt. This isn’t a test of what you can endure. Got it?’

  In a moment, when he gritted his teeth, he felt how gently Holly eased off. She let him cradle his arm to his belly.

  ‘I honestly don’t know how you’re working. Was it this bad last week?’

  ‘Maybe not even yesterday.’

  ‘Let’s sit down again. What about now?’

  ‘Gone. Fine.’

  ‘Unless you move it.’

  ‘I suppose.’

  ‘Do you get palpitations?’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘Of the heart. That it beats irregularly, or maybe too fast. Could be something like your heart feels strange when you’re trying to get to sleep. It might even wake you up.’

  ‘That’s not connected to a shoulder.’

  ‘That’s an indefinite answer.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Let me explain a bit. It really depends on the sort of problem your shoulder has. If it’s bursitis or a joint injury, then okay. You’ll need therapy. But it feels to me like you could have adhesive capsulitis. Frozen shoulder’s the popular name, if you’ve ever heard of it?’

  ‘Don’t think so.’

  ‘It’s the type of thing that can just be there on its own or it can point to extra problems in other areas. The heart, say, or other organs. Mostly the problem just runs its course and that’s it. Recovery’s one hundred percent. But you always have to have the other stuff checked out.’

  ‘I’ve seen plenty of doctors in my time.’

  ‘For this?’

  ‘What’s it called again?’

  ‘Adhesive capsulitis. If that’s what you’ve got.’

  ‘And it makes the arm rigid? That’s pretty funny.’

  ‘How can it be funny?’

  ‘One of the fighters did his best to make me completely rigid was a guy named “Kid Kapsulamis”. Nearly did it too.’

  ‘You’re making that up.’

  ‘Capsulitis here, Kapsulamis in the ring.’

  ‘Did they have a name for you?’

  ‘Smokin’ Charlie Smoke.’

  He liked the way she had to stare at him a moment, then smiled.

  ‘Never smoked a cigarette in my life.’

  Then she laughed.

  Charlie watched her, smiling also, but a little perplexed, then under trees so green and so colourful in their flowering, Holly’s laugh turned to tears, and he felt the strangest thing, not a palpitation in his heart, or a pain, but a sort of melting.

  …

  It was lunch service and ancient Don Paulo, on the book and the main telephone as well as the bar, came into the kitchen to find Bobby. He was with Esteban, who directed his cooks while swearing at Bobby for a missing order of garbanzos and chorizos.

  ‘Where’s your father? What’s the point talking to you?’

  A relief to be called away.

  Don Paulo led Bobby out of the kitchen and across to the reception telephone. Today Paulo seemed more aged than ever, his back bent and his walk slow. Bobby wondered how much longer the man would be able to work here. He wondered just how much longer the bistro would be here for anyone to work in.

  ‘Line one, Roberto.’

  He pressed the button. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Meet me outside.’

  That was Mike, his coarse drawl unmistakable. It sounded like he was calling from a telephone booth.

  ‘Not the alley,’ Bobby replied. He heard a laugh in reply.

  ‘Two doors up. Don’t keep me waiting.’

  Bobby told Paulo he’d be back in five, then left by the front door thinking, as his relatives might say, Mi vida ha vuelto a la mierda. My life has turned to shit.

  Leaning against the wall out front of Johnny’s Barber Shop, the only place most old ethnics would use for their haircuts, Mike smoked a cigarette. Bobby wondered if he’d been inside delivering some ultimatum about selling up.

  ‘Mate,’ Mike spoke.

  ‘I’ve got work to do.’

  ‘Junior wants you to know a .38’s a sweet thing, but it’s something you need to be careful with.’

  Bobby felt all strength leave his body.

  ‘And he’s surprised that since you talked to Javier he hasn’t heard from either you or your old man. He says people in tough situations sometimes convince themselves they can hide, or maybe buy time by holing up in a safe place. But that’s just burying your head in the sand, right?’

  ‘I won’t.’

  ‘Junior’s a very thoughtful individual. So he asked me to give you something.’ Mike reached into a pocket. ‘Cheap, but it’s probably got sentimental value.’

  The strength leaving his body? It was Bobby’s life draining away.

  Mike left him with the fake silver friendship ring, a thing Sistine hadn’t worn, too big for her fingers and with no sentimental value whatsoever. Last he’d seen it, the ring had been on the dresser beside Sissy’s makeup.

  He hurried the few doors back to the bistro. Already Bobby’s mother, Miranda, Esteban and Don Paulo were in some kind of new disagreement, the type that turned faces pink but was conducted in terse whispers.

  ‘Roberto,’ his mother said, ‘what’s going on with the orders?’

  He couldn’t tolerate such everyday troubles. Bobby went through the steaming kitchen to the main storeroom, then to the door of his father’s office. He turned the handle, except that it wouldn’t turn. Locked again. He knocked, then pounded, yet seemed to lack breath enough to call out.

  His papi finally snatched open the door, a great face of annoyance that settled as soon as he saw who it was.

  ‘Roberto, cuál es el problema?’

  ‘We have to sell now,’ Bobby replied in their regional dialect, learned on his mother’s knee. ‘That’s it. Done. We have to take what we can and hope to make up the rest.’

  His father simply stared at him.

  ‘Papi, do you understand?’

  Diego Domingo walked carefully across the floor of his office. Bobby watched him lift his suit jacket from the back of a chair and slip it on. Then his father pushed the small black-and-white television into a corner, away from where it had been standing by his desk. Bobby knew that if he touched it, the thing would be warm.

  ‘I don’t think I understand anything right now, Robertino.’

  Bobby put out his hand.

  ‘And what’s that?’

  ‘A ring I gave Sistine.’

  ‘If it’s an engagement ring it looks like a very poor choice.’

  ‘One of Junior’s men gave it to me.’

  ‘Junior?’

  ‘Yes. Outside, just now.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And he was at her flat, Papi. He went in. To where Sissy lives. My God, they know everything about us, and this, this is a warning. Do you understand now?’

  ‘I understand that Sistine came to me with some story about a debt. A debt you’ve made.’

  ‘Yes, Papi.’ Bobby sighed. ‘That’s my story.’

  ‘Because you think you have to protect me?’

  They stared at each other, then Bobby nodded.

  ‘And this business about selling?’

  ‘Javier came to look around and give me some advice about the market.’

  ‘Are you mad?’ His father could still move very fast. In three quick steps he was beside Bobby and shaking him by the shoulders. ‘Is this for you to do?’

  Bobb
y pulled himself out of that grasp.

  ‘Yes, it is. Because you’re not doing anything. Jesus Christ, we have to act. There’s no waiting. Look at what this means.’ He held out the ring again. ‘They’ll do something awful if we don’t give them the money. Or at least a lot of the money.’

  ‘Stop it.’

  ‘Papi, there’s no other way.’

  ‘Of course there is.’

  ‘Why haven’t you paid Junior back?’

  ‘Boy, what do you think?’

  The tone of his father’s voice silenced Bobby. Those eyes he knew so well, which in recent months could turn so vague and distant, stared into him, brutal and imperious. Bobby imagined trained boxers in a ring quailing under that gaze alone.

  ‘Don’t you forget I’m your father.’

  Bobby’s frozen silence said he wouldn’t.

  ‘You want to know what I’m doing and why. I’m running a business and approaching problems the way any smart businessman should. And the first step is not to panic. You understand?’

  Bobby could barely believe how small his own voice was when he said, ‘Papi, they beat me up.’

  ‘Because you made yourself available. So the mistake is yours.’

  ‘They’ll be back.’

  ‘Keep opening doors for them and of course they will.’

  ‘Then what do I do?’

  ‘What you should have done in the first place.’ Bobby watched his father walk to his desk and pick up the receiver. ‘You should have trusted me.’

  Bobby saw him about to dial, then hesitate.

  ‘I’ve wanted you to grow up and be a man. I see you’re trying. Good. But you still live in the dark. Sometimes because I don’t tell you enough and sometimes because you don’t use your eyes. Now it’s time to think. Ask yourself this question: wouldn’t my father know Javier’s advice before he even gives it? “Don’t sell, the market is dead, but one day when the government wakes up it won’t be.” Tell me. Close enough?’

  ‘It’s what he said.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Then what do we do?’

  ‘What’s obvious. We don’t hand our business over to a man like Junior, or anyone.’

  ‘Even if he hurts us? And Sissy?’